Michael Koby

I have turned on the Seesmic option for this blog in Disqus.  This means if you have a Seesmic account, you’ll be able to leave video comments on this blog.  However, I will not be able to respond with a video comment as I do not yet have a Seesmic account.

You can find out more about the Disqus/Seesmic partnership on the blogs of Fred Wilson and Robert Scoble.

It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything of a personal note on my own blog.  Some might argue that these kinds of posts are egotistical or self-serving, but in some cases it can be good to lay something out to the public because on some occasions the public can keep you honest.  Not to mention that same public can hold you accountable.  So I’m going to come out and let you folks know about my upcoming plans.

Website Updates

This website is in the process of getting a make over by my friends at AngelsEye Inc.  These folks are good friends of mine and you can expect a nice look and feel sometime in the future.  Since this is being done as a favor to me (I’ve known the owner of AngelsEye Inc. for 10 years and have helped in several areas), it could take a little longer than something like “next week” but I’m hoping before the end of the quarter.

Also, some of the following updates might affect the post frequency of this website so, lets look at the other stuff.

Personal Growth

Back in September I took a new position at Sogeti USA.  Sogeti is an IT consulting firm specializing in local solutions.  I was hired on for my C# and SQL skill set.  These two skills are what I have the most depth in.  However, I feel that I could better my career by getting more in-depth with C# from both a language perspective and the whole theory(s) around application development (OOP, Agile, Design, etc).  Things like OOP, Agile, application design, architecture are things I’ve only kind of read up on in order to understand what they were but not necessarily the how of them.

I plan to change that over the coming months.  I have taken a pro-active approach in better understanding Object-Oriented Programming with a focus on design and architecture.  I’m hoping that this coupled with a severe thirst to learn all aspects of the C# language and how to utilize it properly will help me in my career. 

You might think this goes against by “anti-specialization” sentiments that I’ve talked about on  my Consulting Consultants articles.  If that’s the case, you’ll need to tune in this Friday for my thoughts on that.  Also this is just one of the first things I wish to get a deeper understanding of.  Expect to hear me say I’m looking into things like MDM, BI, and data modeling after I get the C# and programming stuff under my belt.

The result is that there might be less time to post here as I’ll be concentrating on bettering my programming skills.

Personal Health

As much as I hate to say it, I’ve let myself go over the last decade.  I’ve put on more pounds than I care to admit and after some research I have discovered that I’m scientifically considered “obese” which is completely unacceptable to me.  I’m not crazy fat and I do not waddle, but I’m a little round in the gut area then I like.

The result of discovering this has led me to get motivated about losing weight and getting healthy again.  I plan to institute an exercise regiment and to eat better than I do now.  The eating part will be most difficult to me.

My goal is to get to 200 pounds.  I’d like to be healthy about it but also do it as quickly as that will allow.  I have set up my page up again at Traineo, if you would like head on over there and sign up as a Motivator for me (http://mkoby.traineo.com).  After I hit this goal, I plan to lose at least another 15.  But I want to do it in steps.

Now you can see why I’ve stated that updates might get a little sparse around here.  I’m going to be busy.

In Conclusion

Closing up I want to let you, my most valued reader, that I will still be writing and you can expect updates.  Those updates just might not be daily (or near daily) anymore.  I plan to keep the Consulting Consultant series going as that seems to be popular with several folk.  You can expect the occasional commentary, how-to, and even general update from time to time.

I plan to remain active on Twitter and FriendFeed as well.  If you want to help me achieve my health goals, you can sign up for Traineo as a motivator for me (see the links above).  Also if you have tips on the programming stuff, I’m all ears.  I’m here to learn.

You might have noticed that last week I posted a video blog (Twitter Breakage this Past Weekend).  There will be another one later today.  This is something new I will be trying here on the website in hopes to incorporate some other social media aspects into this blog.  I’m hoping that this will add something different to this website that has been predominantely text in the past.

Currently these are being done using my digital camera’s video function.  Not the best way, I know but I do not currently own a web cam or a video camera of any kind.  If you have any recommendations on web cams (at the very least) please leave a comment or shoot me an email.

I hope that you enjoy this latest edition to this website.

I was informed this morning that some folks were having issues with commenting on my blog.  Some even thought that comments were disabled.

This is probably due to the fact that I am using Disqus to handle the comments on my blog.  There was a recent posting on the Disqus blog about some growning pains they’ve been experiencing lately.

So if you do not see the comment section on a post, trying doing a refresh on the page.  This usually resolves the problem and you can comment.

A little sidenote though, I was informed of the issues through Twitter and I replied to the peple point out the problem and told them I was using Disqus and that it was probably due to their growning pains.  Right after sending that message I got a reply from Daniel Ha asking if I was having trouble.  Daniel Ha is one of the founders of Disqus.  So points for the customer service.